The Sound of Ticking Clocks
by Doragonkasai-Tsubasa
Summary: Again and again, the world went round, dragging them along with it. Again and again, to the same moment, the same day, in an endless cycle of repetition. Again and again, he died.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.**

**General Warnings:** gen, character death, violence.

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**Summary:** Again and again, the world went round, dragging them along with it. Again and again, to the same moment, the same day, in an endless cycle of repetition. Again and again, he died.

**Author's Notes:** I wrote this after listening to a few songs and reading a few fics on time loops. And there aren't a lot of fics centering Rangiku and Toshirou in a gen angst environment, so I wrote one.

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**The Sound of Ticking Clocks**

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**1.**

It's August 20th, and the clock says it's half an hour past noon. That's fine, it's early enough for her, and even though she wants to go back right ahead to sleep she knows that if she's any later Taicho will bite her head off. So she gets up, folds the blanket that some kind soul – she can easily guess who, it's obvious - had thrown over her drunken form, throws the sake bottles lined up neatly along the wall into the trash and ducks into the bathroom for a quick shower before practically running down the Tenth's hallway, those occupying it expertly dodging to the walls before she can mow them down in her rush.

He's sitting at his desk as always, white hair shining in the sunlight that he's letting come through the window, the ever-present paperwork littered around him as he tackles them with single-mindedness. He doesn't acknowledge her, doesn't even look at her in his indirect disapproval, and with guilty chagrin Matsumoto picks up her stack of the work – which is surprisingly small, Taicho must have done most of it for her, and she resolves to give him a hug for that later, his complaints be damned – and heads on over to her own desk to finish it.

That plan, of course, is shot when she's itching for another sake bottle, even after the multitude that she's had last night, and the lieutenant is practically bouncing in her chair by the time Hitsugaya looks up. But it's not at her – it's towards the door, which not a moment after is knocked on by Fifth Seat Taka. Her captain's always known when someone was going to approach, Matsumoto muses, but her good mood – it's a _beautiful_ morning, wasted on paperwork – is sobered by the news Taka brings. There's a Hollow attack in surprising numbers at the edge of Rukongai, with mentions of even Adjucha among them, and Matsumoto watches her taicho tense until the messenger reports that it's nowhere near his grandmother's district.

He relaxes, then, dismissing the Fifth Seat before settling his papers and grabbing his zanpakuto. Matsumoto does the same, before they both shunpo out the building to grab squads four and five and head out toward District 11 of West Rukongai.

It's hell and chaos, all bundled into one neat package, when they get there. Death surrounds them, and she's pretty sure there's a fire raging somewhere. Hitsugaya sends the squads after the lower-ranking Hollows before taking on the Adjucha pair above them with Matsumoto right behind him. Because he's _her_ captain, damnit, and she'll watch his back, no matter what.

They take down the Hollows with relative ease – they've improved, after all these years, and it'd be foolish to think that someone of a Captain and Lieutenant level can't – and Matsumoto relaxes and snaps off a witty comment to her taicho, who merely frowns at her. It's his way of telling her he's fine, and a quick once-over his form only finds small wounds and blood that mostly isn't his, so she's content in letting him be as he gives orders to the rest of the squads. All of the Tenth's people had survived, apparently, so Matsumoto is happy. It's a good day.

Until Taicho turns back to tell her something, and his green eyes open wider in – surprise? – before he's shooting towards Matsumoto, hand reaching for Hyourinmaru on his back as he launches off of the reiatsu in the air. She can only watch as he darts right past her, sinking his blade into the Arrancar that had snuck up behind her. Damnit, Matsumoto thinks as she draws Haineko, she's supposed to be sharper than this today, and it's _her_ job to watch the _captain's_ back, so what was he doing now? She can only get out a quick "Growl, Haineko!" before Hitsugaya is crossing blades with the Arrancar, her ash swirling around them both and lunging in wherever it found an opening.

They're doing pretty well – the squads have been evacuated, waiting on the ground safely with kido barriers around the wounded – when she's stuck by a surprise attack and pinned to a tree like a butterfly on display. Matsumoto grunts, pain blossoming from her collarbone as Haineko's ashes return to her hilt and as it swings loosely from her hands, her taicho _thrusts_ Hyourinmaru into the chest of the Arrancar, who stumbles and grunts. Matsumoto has a grin on her face, because the thing's _doomed_, when it draws its twisted zanpakuto out from _nowhere_ and twirls it, shouting something incomprehensible in the process.

In the next moment he's throwing that at Matsumoto, who can only watch with wide eyes, still unable to move. Death is something that the Lieutenant isn't afraid of, but she doesn't want to die right here, right now.

That doesn't mean that she can simply stand – hang? – without saying anything when her captain – her loveable, responsible, _kind_ captain – places himself in the way of the weapon, sword held cross-wise and prepared to defend. Apparently its shikai release has something extra to it, though, because it blinks out for a moment before the short spear-like thing reappears in her taicho's chest, protruding from his back.

Matsumoto can barely get out her captain's name in shock before her vision goes fuzzy and descends into black.

When she wakes back up, she's blinking at the ceiling and lying from underneath the blanket her taicho had given her one year. A quick glance at the calendar and clock show that it's August 20th, half past noon, and even if the details are disturbing Matsumoto writes it off as a coincidence and gets up, clearing away her sake bottles and gets herself presentable before running down the halls of the Tenth division. Because obviously that nightmare was from her drinking last night. Obviously.

But her first inkling that something's wrong is when her taicho raises his head from his paperwork, glancing at the door, before it opens to let in Fifth Seat Taka. Matsumoto only looks at him with shock written on her face before Hitsugaya calls to her and shunpos away, and then she only has time to react, to go back to training and instinct and years of working together with the man and her trust in him.

And it happens the same exact way, again, just like in her nightmare. District 11 of West Rukongai, Hollows, a pair of Adjuchas, then an Arrancar. Her being pinned to a tree, before her captain intercepted the weapon being thrown at her with his own body.

And she wakes up again, in the exact same place, underneath the exact same blanket, at the exact same time. Only this time, things are slightly different – she isn't skewed to a tree, she's knocked to the ground and almost impaled, had it not been for her rolling away just in time, cringing from a stomach wound all the while. That doesn't stop the Arrancar from lifting his sword to strike her down where she lies, only for her taicho to interfere with Hyourinmaru, knocking it back.

Matsumoto watches the ten written on his back, swaying in the wind, the green lining the only flash of color on the black and white, and she watches as it blossoms red, pouring the color all over the haori, among the white, black, green. And then she's falling in darkness, plunging back into her body underneath her blankets on August 20th, half an hour past noon.

The cycle repeats, much to her dismay. There are variations each time – it's not always the first reality-warping Arrancar, nor the second sword-adept one, and the Arrancar always changes – but the Adjuchas, the Hollows don't, the fact that her taicho dies _does not change._

There are reinforcements, sometimes; what remains of the squads they've taken to the scene with them either coming to their defense, forcing Hitsugaya to defend them as well as her, or another Division arriving among swirling black kimonos and the white haori of a Captain. Sometimes it's over quickly, other times it's dragged out, blasting the entire area with dominating reiatsu.

(On one notable instance Captain Zaraki had come himself, drawn by the prospect of a dozen Arrancar on the outskirts of Rukongai. That was the one time that Hitsugaya almost lived – almost. He'd lost his life while protecting her when she was down, poisoned.)

Sometimes, she tries to warn her captain against going, but in his stubbornness, his need to protect his people, always wins out and he goes along anyway. Sometimes, she tries to lead the Arrancar towards herself, away from Hitsugaya, but it never works – it, whatever Arrancar it is at the time, is _drawn_ to those with the most reiatsu, and between Matsumoto and Hitsugaya it has always been the Tenth Division Captain that is full to the brim and spilling out with reiatsu.

Because always, it ends one way – her captain, dead, while she, the fukutaicho, the one who is supposed to _protect their captain_, alive.

(Burned, impaled, stabbed, decapitated, strangled, beaten, always, always, blood blood blood.)

**2.**

_You're been dying for the past half-century, with me always the one that lives, you at my feet, bloody. Dead to save me. Trapped in a cycle, again and again and again and again. _

_But that changes this time. No more fooling around._

**3.**

The thud of the zanpakuto against her chest is solid and heavy, the only real thing that Matsumoto is feeling right now with how distant the world seems. Taicho is standing where she's pushed him to, teal eyes wide as he stares at her in shock.

_It's okay,_ Matsumoto wants to say. _It'll all be okay, you'll live, and that's fine with me. Don't blame yourself – it was my choice._ But as darkness descends, she can see something out of the corner of her eye, even past Hitsugaya's unleashed ice that is freezing the Arrancar solid, shattering him into a million ice shards in the process.

Matsumoto dies, her last act saving her taicho instead of the other way around.

**4.**

The calendar on the stand by his bed reads August 20th, and the clock a little past six, its seconds hand ticking steadily away, but Hitsugaya doesn't need to look at those to know. He always knows what date it is – it's not surprising, considering the number of times he's seen that date, this red-orange-pink sky.

He sits up, staring out the window overlooking the Tenth Divison's courtyard with a faraway look on his face, Hyourinmaru still in his hands where he'd gripped it as soon as he came-to.

"…I failed again."

**5.**

_On the outskirts, out of the corner of the eye, there is a bright smile, mockingly, a flash of light, and a splash of red-brown before it all falls back into darkness._

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**...I may elaborate on this universe later. Dunno.**

**Can you guess who that was at the end?**


End file.
